This invention relates to video games and video game systems.
Virtual reality games have been developed where a user places a helmet on his/her head and is immersed into an alternate reality via a display located in the helmet. This user is then allowed to move through an alternate reality by means of a joystick. The user is displayed the alternate reality from a first person perspective. A user is limited in actual physical movement by means of a very small (e.g., 48 inches) enclosed virtual reality platform. Such traditional virtual reality systems are deficient because of the need for additional, unneeded manual actions to be made to move a joystick in order to move the user through the alternate reality. It is therefore desirable to provide a game system with improved user controls.
Traditional virtual reality systems are also unsafe because a user cannot visually see his/her physical environment. Guard rails are typically provided such that a user cannot stray from the virtual reality platform. Yet, a user may become distorted in the alternate reality and lose a sense of direction as to where such rails are located. Thus, a user may dangerously contact such guard rails or foreign objects introduced onto a virtual reality platform. It is therefore desirable to provide safer game systems.
Traditionally heavy computer hardware, multiple platforms, large interconnection wires, and numerous manual control devices are required to immerse more than one user in the same alternate reality. Such virtual reality systems typically cost in the tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands, of dollars. It is therefore desirable provide an economical video game system with improved functionality. It is also desirable to provide software that can realize improved gaming systems in traditional devices such as wireless telephones.
Zingy.com offers wireless telephone ringers for sale and download. Zingy.com allows a user to enter in a wireless telephone number and a corresponding wireless telephone model a website. The user, however, must set up a user profile through a user identification process that includes sending a text message containing a confirmation code to the wireless telephone number. A user must enter in this confirmation code on the website to confirm that the user is in possession of the wireless telephone. Desired ringers must be paid for, and downloaded, one at a time. After a particular ringer has been purchased, that user is sent, via a text message, a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) address. Such an address must be manually extracted from the text message, or entered directly into a browser, in order to be directed to the location of the desired ringer. The user's wireless telephone will then ask the user if the material is OK to download. Only one ringer may be downloaded to a wireless device at a time. It is therefore desirable to provide improved data interchange capabilities for a wireless device.
Sprint offers a VISION PCS service in which the internet location of a Global Content Descriptor file (.GCD file) must be sent, via text messaging, to a Sprint VISION PCS wireless telephone in order to download a file (e.g., a ringer) from a website (e.g., Zingy.com). This .GCD file contains a variety of data fields that tell the wireless telephone, the size of the file, the title of the file, the creator of the file, the file type, and file's internet storage location. Traditional wireless telephones contain programs that use the information of the .GCD file. For example, if the size of the file, as described by the .GCD file, is too large then the wireless telephone will prompt the user that the file is too large to download. Such systems are deficient because two files must be transferred in order to manually obtain a download of a single file. It is therefore desirable to provide a wireless telephone that does not need to download a .GCD file, or a similar file, in order to download content.